Writing Exercise: Describing With Color

Writing exercises are essential for a writer. It’s like getting up in the morning and doing pushups for your brain. Today’s writing exercise is very simple, but will help the writer to learn that colors are used by our culture to describe all manner of details in a text.

Step 1: On a piece of paper or on your computer, list 10 of your favorite colors in a column.

Step 2: Make a second column listing the colors you listed in order of most favorite to least favorite.

Step 3: Write a paragraph in an attempt to use all ten colors to describe your philosophy of life or something you feel strongly about. Below is my example:

Favorite Colors List: green, blue, aquamarine, red, purple, navy blue, white, black, burgundy, gold

Colors List (favorite to least favorite): navy blue, gold, green, white, black, burgundy, aquamarine, purple, red, blue

The most important thing in life as a Christian is to understand what it is to be content. There is a golden quality of contentment that comes through the red blood of Jesus which is lost to the wandering eyes of most who would call themselves Christian. Many once a week, social club attending Bible thumpers miss this, thinking this blue globe we live upon is black and white, screaming the burgundy rage of political action, when they are in truth nothing more than the purpled mule of a certain political party who is only interested in the green greed of industry. Paul said that he had found the secret of being content, and this came after knowing what it was to be both poor and rich, hungry and well fed, and naked and clothed. There is a golden rule by which we have failed to measure ourselves. It is true blue. It is more vast in love than the aquamarine ocean. It is one way.

writing as a spiritual exercise (circularrunning.wordpress.com)
Fast Track to Being a Writer (wordsmithsix.wordpress.com)
Lyric Fire: 25 Unconventional Things You Can Do To Become A Better Writer! (lyricfire.typepad.com)

Published by Roger Colby, Novelist, Editor

Roger Colby is a novelist and teacher who has taught English for nearly two decades. He is also an avid reader of science fiction who feels, like many other sci-fi readers, that he has read everything. He writes science fiction for the reader who is looking for the next best thing, something to excite them into reading again. This blog is his journey as a writer and his musings about writing. He also edits manuscripts for a fee and is an expert at helping you reach your full potential as a writer. View more posts